The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ola Olukoyede has alerted Nigerians that organized foreign fraud syndicates are establishing cells in Nigerian cities and recruiting young Nigerians into serious organized cybercrimes, including cryptocurrency fraud.
Olukoyede made the disclosure on Wednesday, in Abuja on Wednesday, when he received participants of the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC 18) of the National Institute for Security Studies (NISS), led by the Director of Studies, Hyginus Ngele to the Commission.
In a statement, the EFCC’s boss expressed surprise on how bandits and insurgents are able to sustain their activities over the years, stressing that the flow of small arms and light weapons across Nigeria’s borders and the involvement of non-state actors in the illegal exploitation of minerals in parts of the country all compound the threats in the security landscape.
The statement signed by the Head, Media and Publicity, Mr Dele Oyewale, observed that a lot of these foreign fraudster are responsible for the importation of illegal arms into the country using cryptocurrency as means of payment.
“In the special operations we carried out in Lagos recently, we arrested 194 foreigners in the heart of Victoria Island. One hundred and ninety-four of them, Chinese, Filipinos, Eastern Europeans, Tunisians and the like in one building at a time. You can imagine what these guys are doing, 194 of them. Some of them don’t even have valid visas and most of the financial activities they carried out they did through cryptocurrency.
“Another thing that we discovered is that some of the foreigners we arrested were already ex-convicts in their countries. Some of them have been convicted and escaped from their countries and found safe haven in Africa, not only Nigeria. We discovered that they are also developing cells in some other African countries by virtue of the investigation we are carrying out,” Olukoyede said.
The chairman pointed out that at the level of the EFCC, they have always been suspicious of the activities of non-state actors in the areas where the country is challenged security-wise.
